Physicality

1) Yoga Anatomy and Physiology

Discover anatomy as a source of wonder, inspiration and awe. Find out how your body works, the magic of movement and the fundamental processes of life, mediated by the different interconnected structures of your body. Understand your body in practice. Be fascinated as you discover aspects of physiology; such as blood chemistry, the role of oxygen and carbon dioxide, digestion, the maintenance of inner balance and flow, stress mechanisms and more. How does Yoga affect these functions? Use this physiological awareness to create a deeper understanding of your Yoga practice and why you do what you do.

2) The Kriyas

Learn the Hatha Yoga cleansing practices, the shat karmas and find comfort and ease in their use.

3) The Nine Gates of Opening

Cultivate an understanding of the essential simplicity of asana practice. Explore the fundamental nine openings and strengths allowed in the body. Explore these nine gates in relationship to the three dimensions of the field of gravity-levity in which we live and understand how to build a practice to facilitate your personal development.

a) The Nine Gates 1; Hip Opening Practice

Open your hips to the extent that your individual anatomy will allow. Understand why to open your hips. Explore the three dimensions of opening and create a practice to facilitate your development.

b) The Nine Gates 2; Back Bending Development

Your anatomy offers different challenges and blessings. This course will take you as far as your anatomy and practice will allow you to go. Open and extend your spine into the heart opening back bends, whilst understanding the integrity of structure.

c) The Nine Gates 3; Inversions

Play with a range of techniques to facilitate the practice and understanding of inversion. Here we will explore shoulder-stands, forearm balance, headstands and handstands.

d) The Nine Gates 4; Balancing

Cultivate your practice and awareness of balance. This course includes working with standing balances, arm and hand balances.

Balance in life is an essential key.

e) The Nine Gates 5; Twisting

Understanding the function of the spine and the basic principles and reasoning of twists we will explore how to deepen our experience of twisting and fully nourish the spine and nervous system.

4) Roots into Lift

Develop and experientially understand your centre of gravity as a function of your existence within the earth element. Manifest deeper foundation, mutual relationship with earth, and from these roots open into the possibilities of expansion. Deeply explore the three core bandhas, the American neo-bandhas, and their relationship to incarnation and freedom. Experience the role of the Bandhas on the physical level of experience as manifesting the power to move around the centre of gravity.
Using exercises to explore grounding, centring and lift from the base we use our current experience, possibilities, potential and limitations of our individual anatomies to play with this aspect of incarnate being.

5) Krama, the Steps of Practice

Vinyasa krama is a deeply intelligent method of working with the principles of anatomy, alignment, flow, foundation and individual developmental process to cultivate a profound and effective personal practice or class. Through this workshop you will develop the understanding of krama and how to make it work for you.

6) Preventing and Healing Injury

Anatomy of Knees, Muscles, Shoulders, Spine, Muscles and Connective tissue; understanding these, no injury is necessary. Injury usually arises from pushing, being pushed and not listening deeply and intelligently enough to body-mind.

Working with existing conditions, the principles of flow medicine and krama we can use the practice as therapy, to heal.

7) The Art of Adjustment 1

A weekend workshop looking at the basic skills of adjustment and how to begin to understand the workings of our own or others bodies and minds and how adjustment can facilitate a deeper experience of practice.

The psycho-neurological rational behind hands on and verbal adjustment in conjunction with demonstration.

This session will get you to begin or deepen your comfort and awareness with the different aspects of adjusting.

8) The Art of Adjustment 2

Six days of diving, deep into the art and skills of adjusting.

Learn to Adjust your students in the best possible way.

Learn from a teacher of 20 years standing.

Human Beings learn Yoga practice mostly through creating internal sensory maps and then recreating that experience. Internal sensory maps can be made from words only with great difficulty.

Internal sensory maps are also hard to make from visual demonstrations.

One of the most important teaching tools as a Yoga teacher you have is your hands!

Adjustment that is kind, sensitive to physical differences, understanding of individual development and the steps of development, secures safe and strong practice.

The teacher using their hands with intelligence heals students.

All teaching is an engagement in the cultivation of compassion and wisdom.

You will learn;

To use your hands in the best possible way to guide your students into a deeper yet safer and more satisfying practice.

Learn to use your hands in ways that guarantee your students understand what you are seeking for them to experience.

Learn to use your hands to help students understand their own bodies and their practice.

Learn to use your hands with maximum intelligence and awareness.

Learn the language of touch and understand how to use your verbal language in ways that support this ‘hands on’ teaching.

You will also learn to understand the kinesiology of asana and how bodies move and work in practice. Rooted in western anatomy and physiotherapy and honouring Yogic models of body-mind function.

You will also begin to learn the meridians of flow through the body and how to understand these.

You will begin to more fully understand different body types and how to read what is happening in different anatomies and what they need and what is possible for them.

As the Dalai Lama said,

“all systems and methods exist to promote human happiness, if the systems and methods hurt people they need to evolve and fit people, not people be broken to suit the system or method”

This workshop will help you understand the neurological, structural and emotive condition of pattern. We will explore the freedoms and limitations of physical existence. Somatic intelligence is an aspect of kosmic intelligence, and thus assists the movement into deeper and more unobstructed wisdom and lovingness.